The Resort Read Online Free Page A

full up with reservations since we opened six months ago—word gets around, you know—and if we didn’t have the sign and the chain, people would drive in. It’s a good fifteen minutes getting up to the place, three S-curves on the way, and it’s pretty much one way except in a few spots. They’d get angry being turned away after the drive up, and we wouldn’t know they were coming so we’d have cars going up against cars coming down, awful. Let me buzz them that we’re on the way.”
    The young man went back inside the sentry box and into the wall phone said, “On the way.” Henry saw the books on the rocker inside the sentry box.
    “I see you have something to read while you wait,” he said.
    “Oh yeah,” the young man said, “it’s great. Gives me a chance to catch up on all those books I was supposed to have read in college, you know, Spengler, Joyce.”
    “What school’d you go to, Steve?” Henry asked, feeling the necessity of reciprocating the effusion of hospitality.
    “Call me Clete,” the young man said. “Everyone does.”
    Clete latched and locked the sentry-box door.
    “Mind if I ride in the back with you?”
    Henry thought Clete was a very nice, California-looking young man, down to the blue jeans and orange T-shirt saying “Cliffhaven.”
    Clete unhooked the chain, waited for the car to pass, and put the chain back up, then clambered into the back seat of the Ford.
    “Nice car,” he said.
    “Rented,” Henry said.
    “That’s good,” Clete said.
    Why good?
    Henry drove up the dirt road slowly in order not to stir up too much dust.
    “You’ll probably find it easier in low gear,” Clete said. “Don’t worry about the blind curves. They’ll hold any car coming down until we get there. Who recommended Cliffhaven to you, Mr. Brown?”
    Henry told him.
    “That’s good,” Clete said.
    Henry kept his eyes on the rock-strewn, curving road.
    “Oh look,” Margaret said, “there’s a baby redwood.”
    “Right you are, Dr. Brown. Actually, if you want to stop a minute here, it’s worth looking. The redwoods go down almost as far as they go up.”
    They got out of the car, and true enough, the redwoods at the side of the road went all the way down into a ravine for fifty or sixty feet. It was an odd sensation looking down and then up to get the full length of the trees.
    “The lay of the land gives us plenty of privacy up there,” Clete said.
    “Yes,” Henry replied.
    “Off we go,” Clete said, clapping his hands.
    Henry wondered whether Stanley would be like that when he was twenty-six or -seven. Well, he wouldn’t be that blond or that California-looking. Stanley was not likely to be working at an inn. At least he hoped he wouldn’t.
    “Be a bit careful on this next turn,” Clete said. “You’ve got a boulder on each side, but you can squeeze by. We get small trucks by them.”
    “It’s a long way,” Margaret said. “Does anyone walk it?”
    “Not usually,” Clete said, a sober tone in his voice. “Especially after dusk. We get some mountain lions in these parts.”
    “You do?” Margaret said.
    “They never attack a car,” Clete said.
    When they finally reached the top of the road and passed another sentry box, Henry was able to pull over and the three of them got out of the car. Cliffhaven was miraculously beautiful.
    The four largest buildings seemed to Henry triangles greatly extended vertically, one side thrusting straight at the sky, and at the apex sloping at a sharp angle almost to the ground. Though the design was stark and modern, the graying redwood used in the construction seemed natural atop the hills overlooking the surf far below. An artist-architect with a nature-defying boldness had implanted new houses atop hills accustomed only to wilderness.
    Henry turned to Margaret. Her eyes were registering astonishment and praise.
    “You folks dig Cliffhaven?” Clete asked.
    “Yes,” Henry said.
    “It’s like I imagined Norway would look like